Measure Up
/There is no way to quite describe the feeling that I got when I sat down to eat with daughter at the school cafeteria for the first time. She looked up at me. It was a look that said she completely adored me just for being me. That just blew me away. She couldn't hardly sit still, or know what to do with her hands, as if she wanted to hug me. There was a searching look as if to say, "Who am I?" "Tell me who I am."
Fathers have a way of planting life mottos in the heads of their daughters.
"Measure Up!" is one of the most often heard. Perhaps it is never verbalized, but a daughter knows what's expected—and her attempts to live up to those expectations from her childhood result in her running her life by guilt. She ends up serving a motto instead of her creator.
Stephen Goforth